Crafts

Posted By

Extract from

Eco Colour by India Flint

The essence of plants bursts forth in magnificent hues and surprising palettes. Using dyes of the leaves, roots, and flowers to color your cloth and yarn can be an amazing journey into botanical alchemy. In Eco Colour, artistic dyer and colorist India Flint teaches you how to cull and use this gentle and ecologically sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes.

India explores the fascinating and infinitely variable world of plant color using a wide variety of techniques and recipes. From whole-dyed cloth and applied color to prints and layered dye techniques, India describes only ecologically sustainable plant-dye methods. She uses renewable resources and shows how to do the least possible harm to the dyer, the end user of the object, and the environment. Recipes include a number of entirely new processes developed by India, as well as guidelines for plant collection, directions for the distillation of nontoxic mordants, and methodologies for applying plant dyes.

Eco Colour inspires both the home dyer and textile professional seeking to extend their skills using India’s successful methods.

Instructions

You Will Need

Collect a quantity of skins from brown and red (Spanish) onions. Have ready a piece of silk — habutai or crêpe de chine works well.

Step 2

Lay the silk flat on the work surface and spread the onion skins over the silk.

Step 3

Moisten using a hand-mister filled with vinegar (or any of the non-toxic home- made mordants). Starting at one edge, roll the silk with the onion skins inside.

Step 4

When you have a sausage shape, roll that up as well. Tie tightly with string or fasten with rubber bands. Moisten the outside with a little more liquid, bundle in a plastic bag (or place in a jar with lid), and set aside for at least a week, preferably one month.

Step 5

If mould appears, place the object in a snap-lock bag and freeze for a few days. Alternatively, steam it over boiling water for 30 minutes.

Step 6

Unwrap, shaking off the plant material (this is best done outside in the garden if you have one).

Step 7

Allow to dry, then press with a steam iron (use a pressing cloth). Allow to rest at least a few days before first rinsing.

Step 8

The most difficult thing about this method is resisting opening the bundle to check on the colour!

Step 9

Post-mordant in an iron-rich solution (or spray on using the hand-mister) and observe the colours change to olive greens and browns.